BY MATTHEW BOEDY A decade ago a red flag about post-tenure review was waved in Texas. It was then that the University of Texas system put “more teeth” in its post-tenure review policy and Inside Higher Ed mused that “the step by UT—one of the largest public universities in the nation, with 5,268 tenured faculty…
BY TALIA SCHAFFER Several years ago, I witnessed Malcolm Gladwell fearlessly tell a Cambridge audience that nobody should give a cent to Harvard. Whenever I read someone criticizing Gladwell’s tendency to cherry-pick data, I remember that moment. Two of Gladwell’s recent “Revisionist History” podcast episodes (season 6, episodes 2 and 3) do reveal his characteristic…
BY RAFAEL JAIME As colleges and universities prepare to reopen in the fall, academic workers across the country are making it clear they are not interested in returning to business as usual. The years-long crisis underscored the extent to which our current higher education system has lost sight of its core mission to educate future…
BY ALEX SMALL I recently read Tom Ginsburg’s article “How to Truly Protect Academic Freedom” with sympathetic disagreement. I share his concern over the many high-profile incidents that he cites, and I have lamented many of them with friends. I am an avid consumer (even tester?) of academic freedom, lodging dissents in my university’s academic…
BY KELLI PYRON ALVAREZ In June, a colleague who did not attend my University of Oklahoma workshop “Anti-Racist Rhetoric & Pedagogies” decided to download the video and send it to off-campus parties. I cannot speak to his intent, but the result was that several organizations, including FIRE, misinterpreted and misconstrued the goal and purpose of…
BY JAY M. SMITH At UNC–Chapel Hill, one of the biggest frustrations arising from the entire Nikole Hannah-Jones affair has been the obstinate refusal of UNC Chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz and Provost Robert Blouin to tell the campus community what happened and why. Thanks to the candid statement Hannah-Jones released after deciding to refuse UNC’s job…
BY MICHAEL GIVEL At many universities across the United States, a modern addition to central administrations has been some type of a diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) program or office. At the University of Oklahoma (OU), where I am a professor of political science, our DEI program is known as the Office of Diversity, Equity,…
BY SYDNEY FREEMAN, JR., AND DEBORAH THORNE Results from student evaluations of teaching (SETs) are biased; the evidence is irrefutable. Students more harshly assess female instructors and instructors of color. Despite that, in the professional lives of instructors, SETs are extremely consequential—they are used to guide very high stakes personnel decisions such as whether one…
BY DANIEL MORRIS On June 11, 2021, the Purdue Board of Trustees passed a civics literacy requirement for undergraduates despite opposition from the faculty senate. Placed in the context of what happened at the University of North Carolina in April, when, as Lindsie Rank reports, “the board of trustees refused to approve the faculty’s recommendation…